Throughout his life, Gustav Mahler was a passionate reader who felt at home on the Olympus of literature. But when he composed lieder, instead of setting texts by Goethe, Eichendorff, or Heine, he chose folk poems from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Why? Because Mahler believed that these poems expressed human feelings and moods authentically, regarding them as “first-hand poetry.” In his two concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Bernard Haitink will focus on Mahler’s song writing. Joining him for the splendid Wunderhorn lieder, which waver between profound grief, rebellion, and humor is Christian Gerhaher, a first-rate Mahler performer, and the young soprano Anna Lucia Richter, who has thrilled Lucerne audiences in her accounts of Mahler’s Fourth and Eighth Symphonies – two gifted lieder singers. Haitink will pair Mahler with Mozart, opening the program with the Linz Symphony.

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) was founded in 1981 by a group of young musicians who became acquainted as part of the European Union Youth Orchestra. There are now approximately 60 members of the COE, which combines principals and section leaders from international ensembles, eminent chamber musicians, and music teachers. From the start, the COE’s identity was shaped by its partnerships with leading conductors and soloists. It was Claudio Abbado above all who served as an important mentor in the early years. He led the COE in such stage works as Rossini’s Il viaggio à Reims and Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart’s Figaro and Don Giovanni and conducted numerous concerts featuring works by Schubert and Brahms in particular. Nikolaus Harnoncourt also had a major influence on the development of the COE through his performances and recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies, as well as through opera productions at the Salzburg, Vienna, and styriarte festivals. In the 2016-17 season the COE worked with such figures as Piotr Anderszewski, Renaud Capuçon, Vladimir Jurowski, and Sir András Schiff. Yannick Nézet-Seguin conducted the COE in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in Baden-Baden in July 2017. Bernard Haitink appears regularly at the podium. Under him the COE has performed the complete symphonies and concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann at LUCERNE FESTIVAL; in January 2017 the orchestra appeared with Haitink at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. The COE has recorded more than 250 works; its CDs have garnered 60 international prizes, including the Grammy Award, the Record of the Year Award from Gramophone, and the MIDEM Classical Download Award. Their most recent release is of violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Schumann with Carolin Widmann as the soloist; they will release the complete Mendelssohn symphonies led by Nézet-Séguin later in 2017.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 21 August 1986 in a program of works by Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, and Brahms under Claudio Abbado.

For further information on this ensemble, visit their homepage at: www.coeurope.org

Bernard Haitink was born in 1929 in Amsterdam. Trained as a violinist, he appeared on the podium for the first time in 1954 to conduct the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1956 he made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, which in 1961 appointed him Music Director; for 27 years he had full responsibility there. Haitink has also held leadership positions with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1967–79), the Glyndebourne Festival (1977–88), the Royal Opera House in London (1987–2002), and the Staatskapelle Dresden (2002–04) and has served as Principal Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2006–10). As a guest conductor, Haitink has led such ensembles as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the 2016-17 season he additionally worked with the London Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Orchestra Mozart, and the Orchestra of La Scala Milan. Music of the 19th and early 20th centuries is the focus of his repertory. His interpretations of Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich in particular have become benchmarks, but Haitink is equally well known for his performances of Viennese Classicism. In recent years at LUCERNE FESTIVAL Haitink has devoted himself to performing cycles of the complete symphonies and concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann. He is also associated with the Festival in the realm of education through the master class in conducting that he has led annually at Easter since 2011. Haitink is an Honorary Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, a Knight of the British Empire, a Companion of Honour, and a member of the Order of the House of Orange-Nassau. In 2017 he received the highest civil honor of his homeland when he was promoted to Commander of the Order of Lion of the Netherlands.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 17 August 1966 with the Swiss Festival Orchestra in a program of works by Schubert, Martin, and Mahler.

The German soprano Anna Lucia Richter, who was born in 1990, comes from a major musical family. After her initial vocal training with her mother, Regina Dohmen, she studied with Kurt Widmer and Klesie Kelly-Moog. She won the Mendelssohn Prize in 2011 and, in 2012, the International Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau. She is a passionate lieder singer and has appeared in recitals at the Heidelberg Spring Festival, the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, and the Ruhrtriennale and at Wigmore Hall in London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Park Avenue Armory in New York. She has worked with such pianists as Hartmut Höll, Gerold Huber, and Igor Levit. Wolfgang Rihm composed his song cycle Ophelia Sings for her. On the opera stage, Richter has performed Zerlina in Don Giovanni at Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Aalto Theater in Essen. She sang Eurydice and La Musica in a production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo staged by Sasha Waltz and conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. In the spring of 2017 she sang in Henze’s Elegie for Young Lovers at the Theater an der Wien; at the opening of the 2017-18 season she will appear as Servilia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito under Teodor Currentzis in Bremen, Geneva, Dortmund, and Paris. Anna Lucia Richter’s credits in the concert hall include with the London Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Orchestre de Paris, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the Staatskapelle Dresden. She has recorded an album of Eichendorff lieder, Brahms’s Requiem, and Schumann’s Der Rose Pilgerfahrt. Anna Lucia Richter won the Borletti Buitoni Trust Award in 2016.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut at the opening concert of the 2015 Summer Festival, when she sang in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA under Bernard Haitink.

While completing his medical studies, the baritone Christian Gerhaher, who was born in Straubing in 1969, studied voice at the Munich Academy of Music, where he and his regular piano partner Gerold Huber took Friedemann Berger’s lieder class. He additionally studied in master classes with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Inge Borkh. The focus of Gerhaher’s artistic work is singing lieder, as seen in his dedication to the great Romantic repertoire and also to new works that he has premiered, including, recently, cycles by Heinz Holliger, Jörg Widmann, and Wolfgang Rihm. In the 2016-17 season he gave recitals in Salzburg, Munich Berlin, Paris, Milan, and London and as part of a major tour of the United States, singing such works as Brahms’s Die schöne Magelone, his recording of which was released in the spring of 2017. Along with his performances in the concert hall, Gerhaher dedicates himself to selected opera projects. He has performed the role of Papageno in The Magic Flute at the Salzburg Festival and the title role in Henze’s The Prince of Homburg at the Theater an der Wien. Other credits include Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Debussy’s Pelléas at Oper Frankfurt; Berg’s Wozzeck at Zurich Opera; and Posa in Verdi’s Don Carlo at Bavarian Staatsoper. Wolfram from Wagner’s Tannhäuser is his signature role for his portrayal of which he received the Laurence Olivier Award in 2011. Gerhaher enjoys a close association with the Berlin Philharmonic, which engaged him as artist-in-residence in the 2013-14 season. During this past season he sang there in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde under Bernard Haitink. Christian Gerhaher’s discography has garnered many awards, including the International Opera Award; in 2016 he received the Heidelberger Frühling’s Music Prize.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 5 April 2003 in Haydn’s oratorio The Creation conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

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